Page 98 of The Enemy Protector
She's my wife. That's the arrangement. Strategic alliance. Protection in exchange for legitimacy.
Except it stopped being just strategy the moment I slid that ring on her finger. Maybe it stopped being strategy years ago, when I first started watching over her.
I scrub a hand over my face.
This is a problem.
I don't do feelings. Feelings for her are a liability I can't afford in my world.
I'm handling it, I tell Elena’s ghost. I find myself talking to Elena a lot lately. Her daughter is making me crazy, and we’ve been married a day.She's fine. She's angry. That's fine.
She'll come around. Or she won't. Either way, I made a promise. A man who doesn't keep his promises is a man with no currency left in any world, this one or the one I hope exists after it.
I keep my promises.
Even the inconvenient ones.
Especially those.
23
Sofia
It’s been a week.
I know Sergei better than I did on our wedding day, but barely. We don’t talk. Not really. We exist in the same space without getting in each other’s way. He’s never asked me to return to his bedroom. He doesn’t touch me. Never attempts to kiss me.
It’s a very strange marriage, but I think I know what he’s doing.
That’s assuming I’m giving him the benefit of being a human capable of emotions. I’m not sure I’m willing to give him that just yet.
But he’s not a monster.
I don’t think.
When I think about it, I can acknowledge he’s done nothing bad to me. He’s only protected me.
Seven days of cohabitation with a man I've known for less than two weeks and trusted for three years without knowing it. Themath doesn't work and yet here I am, learning he likes his scotch neat and his coffee black.
Tonight I have to be something other than the woman living in his house.
I have to be his wife and meet his family.
I walk downstairs wearing a dress I picked out for tonight. I’m rebuilding my wardrobe on his dime. Sergei insisted.
Sergei and Nelson are in the foyer talking when I step down.
They both turn to look at me.
Sergei’s gaze sends heat swirling through my body. And then his eyes are on mine. I don’t know what I was expecting. A compliment? Irritation that I chose a dress that is just a little sexier than I would normally choose?
I might have done that on purpose. A lady needs to feel sexy sometimes. And with the last week, I’ve felt a little—neglected. I can’t help but think my inexperience in bed disappointed him.
“We’re late,” he says in a gruff tone.
He doesn’t like the dress.
That makes me smile.
